ddle of the night the kiln
fell. For the third time we had failed.

The failure of this last kiln left me without a single dollar with which
to make another experiment. Most of the teachers advised the abandoning
of the effort to make bricks. In the midst of my troubles I thought of
a watch which had come into my possession years before. I took the watch
to the city of Montgomery, which was not far distant, and placed it in a
pawn-shop. I secured cash upon it to the amount of fifteen dollars, with
which to renew the brickmaking experiment. I returned to Tuskegee, and,
with the help of the fifteen dollars, rallied our rather demoralized and
discouraged forces and began a fourth attempt to make bricks. This time,
I am glad to say, we were successful. Before I got hold of any money,
the time-limit on my watch had expired, and I have never seen it since;
but I have never regretted the loss of it.

Brickmaking has now become such an important industry at the school
that last season our students manufactured twelve hundred thousand of
first-class bricks, of a quality stable to be sold in any market. Aside
from this, scores of young men have mastered the brickmaking trade--both
the making of bricks by hand and by machinery--and are now engaged in
this industry in many parts of the South.

The making of these bricks taught me an important lesson in regard to
the relations of the two races in the South. Many white people who had
had no contact with the school, and perhaps no sympathy with it, came to
us to buy bricks because they found out that ours were good bricks.
They discovered that we were supplying a real want in the community.
The making of these bricks caused many of the white residents of the
neighbourhood to begin to feel that the education of the Negro was not
making him worthless, but that in educating our students we were adding
something to the wealth and comfort of the community. As the people of
the neighbourhood came to us to buy bricks, we got acquainted with them;
they traded with us and we with them. Our business interests became
intermingled. We had something which they wanted; they had something
which we wanted. This, in a large measure, helped to lay the foundation
for the pleasant relations that have continued to exist between us and
the white people in that section, and which now extend throughout the
South.

Wherever one of our brickmakers has gone in the South, we find that
he has something to con